Friday, September 20, 2013

UN: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon acts like USA's puppet?

Lyuba Lulko


Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accused UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of commitment to a strategy of war against Syria. The reason behind this statement was the presentation of the report of the UN Commission on the use of chemical weapons in the suburbs of Damascus on August 21. A clear tendency to lean towards pushing the Western position is typical of Ban Ki-moon, but other people are not chosen for such positions.

Maduro said at a rally in the state of Miranda that Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, acted as a prosecutor and the world judge, and was in the service of a military strategy rather than peace, Franse Presse quoted his words.

The UN Secretary General's statement accompanying the report has caused controversy. On Monday, September 16, Ban Ki-moon announced the conclusion of UN experts that on August 21 near Damascus a sarin gas attack took place. The experts did not identify the perpetrators, as this was not part of the investigation, the Secretary General said and showed the world the cover of the document depicting fragments of a Soviet missile that allegedly delivered the sarin.

The Secretary General has determined who was guilty in the attack before the presentation, saying a week earlier that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad committed a crime against humanity. At the end of the report (to be published on September 24), he urged the UN to support the Russian- American plan for Syria by adopting a clear resolution and said that the failure to implement the plan will cause consequences under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, allowing the use of force. Without naming the perpetrators directly, Pan has done everything to ensure that no one had any doubts that he shared the insinuations of the West, and his commission was not impartial.

The adviser of the U.S. President for National Security Susan Rice said that the report of the UN inspectors confirmed that chemical weapons near Damascus on August 21 were used by the Syrian government forces. The ambassador to the UN from the United Kingdom Layel Mark Grant said that this confirmed the opinion that the regime used chemical weapons.

According to the President of Venezuela, the United States and its allies have changed their tactics and now want to justify the attack on Syria with the Report of the United Nations, while simultaneously preparing an attack on Syria from Turkey. Maduro likely meant that on the same day, September 16, the Turkish army shot down a Syrian helicopter that allegedly violated its airspace. Maduro said that the West wanted to align the two events, the publication of the report of the UN and the war against Syria by Turkey, which would oblige NATO to intervene.

On September 17 there was an explosion at the Turkish-Syrian border that killed seven people and injured 25. "The use of force against Syria is legitimate only in the case of self-defense in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations or in the case of its approval by the Security Council, said the Secretary General. His "or" suggests that if Syria "attacks" Turkey, the Secretary General will not object to "self-defense" by the NATO forces. Maduro is not too far from the truth.

The statements by Secretary General raise other questions. For example, why Ban Ki-moon has not granted his commission the authority of find the perpetrators? Could it be that in this case the Assad government will not be called guilty? This has already been said many times by Russian experts who submitted to the UN a report on the chemical attack carried out in the spring near Aleppo. The conclusion was clear that it was the opposition who used chemical weapons.

Ban Ki-moon is extremely two-faced. After the successful completion of negotiations for the destruction of the Syrian chemical arsenals, the West has temporarily eliminated the need for an immediate military strike, and got the opportunity to send "scouts" to Syria. The Secretary General immediately issued a statement that the commission will return to Syria and visit Aleppo for an inspection.

While condemning the Syrian government, the Secretary General does not condemn the government of Israel that bombed the Syrian, Egyptian, and Palestinian territories at its whim, killing innocent people. Where is the condemnation of the massacre of Kurds in the north of Syria by militants? There was none. Issuing the mandate to the UN, the Secretary General did not care how this mandate will be carried out.

Did the UN issue a sanction for the NATO bombing in Libya? No, there was only a sanction for providing an "air corridor." Again, there was no response to a gross violation of the mandate. This obvious tendency to support the West is common to all the latest UN secretaries, and it is likely that other types are not chosen.

Yesterday Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov expressed his concern with the preconceived conclusions of the commission. "We are disappointed, to say the least, by the approach shown by the UN Secretariat and the UN inspectors who were in Syria. They prepared the report without collecting materials from the other three episodes, selectively and not in full, without regard to the circumstances we have repeatedly pointed out. The Syrian side urged them to do so, and so did we,"Ryabkov told RIA Novosti.

"Without a complete picture of what's going on here, the findings arrived at by the UN experts led by Ake Selstrom cannot be called anything but politicized, biased and one-sided," Ryabkov added. With regard to this report the immediate tactical goal of the U.S. and its allies is obvious - to promote a draft resolution on Syria of the UN Security Council with strong language and a threat of using force against Damascus